


Ritual and Space

by tilia_cordata



Series: Challenging Conversations [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, Post-Series, Religion, Wedding Planning, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tilia_cordata/pseuds/tilia_cordata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt’s launched into full wedding planning mode, leading to a conversation about religion and ritual. Slight AU from canon, written last year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ritual and Space

Blaine walked through the door after work to find Kurt at home, sitting on the living room floor surrounded by brochures and a notebook.

 

"Oh, you’re home! Good, you can help me make some decisions!" said Kurt brightly, popping up from the floor and giving Blaine a kiss. 

"When did you get home? Don’t you have rehearsal?" asked Blaine. He smiled and began taking off his coat. 

"Not this afternoon, schedule got switched around. I took the day off to start doing research into churches for the wedding ceremony." He pushed brochures and fact sheets into Blaine’s hands. "I’m thinking grandly and we can scale down from there. St. Johns and Riverside are obviously the best - gorgeous grand cathedrals. But I don’t know if that would be too ostentatious?" He looked at Blaine and then looked down at the price list he had in his hand. "It’s probably too expensive. But we’re over two years away, we can save up."

Blaine looked at the cathedral brochures in his hand, then looked at Kurt incredulously. “Kurt -” he started. 

"You do think it’s too ostentatious " Kurt interrupted, sighing with dramatic disappointment. "We can scale back, I’m sure I can find another cathedral where the light streams in like this-" he held up a picture "- on a more reasonable budget. I just think we should plan big and then scale back instead of undercutting ourselves."

"It’s not the money," said Blaine. "But Kurt, churches?" 

"Oh, I looked them all up, none of these have a problem doing same-sex ceremonies. They’re all non-denominational or Episcopal, none of them are Catholic. Which unfortunately eliminates a lot of beautiful stained glass, but what can you do." 

Blaine sat down on the couch, reflexively neatening Kurt’s piles of notes and pictures. “Yeah, but Kurt, you’re an atheist,” he said bluntly. 

"Of course I am, what does that have to do with anything?" His eyes were bright with visions of flowers on pews and light streaming through rose windows. 

"I just didn’t think you’d want to, you know, have a religious wedding since you don’t believe in God."

Kurt sank back down on his pillow on the floor, and looked up at Blaine. “But it’s not about religion, is it?” His hand rested on an open magazine he had open, with a photo-spread of royal weddings. “It’s how weddings go, right? It’s part of the ritual.” He picked up a picture of the nave and alter of a particularly grand Gothic revival cathedral. “This church has meaning because it’s beautiful, because the angles of the building and the quality of the light can make you gasp, because the structure and ritual to everything that happens there. Not because of any God or supernatural sky creature that decides it has meaning.”

Blaine sighed and looked down at his lap. “I don’t know. To me churches, even churches like that, just feel kind of … kind of lonely or empty or something.”

Kurt moved up on the couch next to Blaine. “It won’t be empty, all our friends and family will be there. Not lonely at all - enough love to fill those high, high vaulted ceilings.” Kurt drifted off for a moment, eyes filled with daydreams of architecture again. He shook his head, and continued. “That’s what’s important about weddings, right? People and love and ritual.”

"I don’t think I like the ritual as much as you do, Kurt," said Blaine. "In fact, if I’m being really honest, I think some of the ritual-" he pointed down at the church ceremony in the royal wedding photo spread "- actually makes me really uncomfortable." 

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh. Look, Kurt, you didn’t actually grow up going to church, did you?"

Kurt shook his head. “We went a few times when I was little, before my mom died. I mostly just remember singing, I was too young to really understand what the sermons or anything were about. After she died, after the funeral, I got a better idea of what religion might actually be about, and I didn’t want or need it. I had my dad. That was enough, better than fairy tales that are supposed to make you feel better but are cold substitutes for anything real.” He took a breath to calm down. “What about you? This isn’t something we ever really talked about. Your parents are Episcopalian, right?”

Blaine nodded. “I grew up going to church with them. Not every Sunday, but most. We weren’t, like, religious. Church was a thing you did. It was getting dressed in clothes I knew my mother would like. It was learning to sit for as long as possible without fidgeting, without falling asleep. It was learning when to stand and sit and kneel, what to repeat when I was too young to understand the words.”

"It was all ritual."

"Yeah, it was ritual without any meaning or feeling behind it for me. It was just kind of, I don’t know, empty? And it was expectations. It was a lot of expectations I hated because I wasn’t sure I would fulfill, and then felt bad for hating them. There was no fire and brimstone  no threat of damnation. There wasn’t really anything worth hating, other than the fact that it was another thing that I did because I was supposed to, not because I cared about it or wanted to. It was lonely."

He paused and looked at Kurt. “Don’t get mad at me for this, but I think if I’d grown up in a family where religion actually meant something real, I might be a religious person. It might be something I want later, to find a religious community that makes me feel good. That won’t scare you off?”

Kurt smiled. “As long as you don’t try to convert me, and you don’t force it on our kids, I’m happy with anything that makes you happy.”

"But until then, can we have our wedding that doesn’t fill me with all the feelings I hated about my childhood? Even if the light doesn’t stream through a rose window?"

Reaching down to his stacks of papers on the floor, Kurt nodded. “I got brochures of places besides churches. There’s museums and grand hotels and vineyards and gardens.” Blaine smiled and flipped through the leaflets. “What about here?” he asked, holding up a brochure for the New York Botanical Garden. 

"You know, when I was little, my mom always talked about wanting to take me there. She’d been to the orchid show, once before I was born." 

Blaine grinned. “Well, that’s perfect then, right?” Kurt nodded. “Good, well that’s a start. Let’s make some dinner and talk about how we might be able to afford this thing. And Kurt?”

"Yeah?"

"It’s our wedding. We can keep the parts of the ritual that make us feel good and connected and grounded, and we can get rid of anything that doesn’t. Okay?"

"Okay. Perfect."

The two men kissed, then Kurt pulled Blaine’s hand into the kitchen, telling him about the time he had the brilliant idea of feeding doves glitter so you could release them indoors while he pulled pasta out of the cupboard. 

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always wanted to see Kurt and Blaine have a conversation about religion, and planning a wedding seemed like a place where I think they’d have to work out some differences. Misqueue on Tumblr wrote a great post about Kurt’s atheism, which was what kicked this off in my head. I might write a couple more ficlets centered around Klaine planning a wedding and hashing out important issues, we’ll see. (Also, thank you to my wife for beta-ing!)


End file.
